


Conditional

by benrumo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aged-Up Character, Alien Biology, Alternate Universe, Multi, Trans Character, Transgender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 21:57:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benrumo/pseuds/benrumo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat knows Dave is lying to him about something. But when you don't even know enough about your matesprit's species to tell his stashes of food from his ironically collected toy dough, how are you supposed to figure out when he's telling the truth and when he's pushing the irony a little too far?</p><p>Warning! Fic Contains: sex, dinner parties, a Kill Bill marathon, Karkat eating weird things, Vriska trying not to be a huge bitch, risky pillow forts, grub salads, that one time when John bit Karkat's head off, Earth warriors who save the moon from giant monsters, wonder bread, John's secret porn stash, and several reasons why Karkat really fucking hates and pities Dave Strider.</p>
            </blockquote>





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There are a lot of words you could use to describe Dave Strider. There are the stupidly obvious choices, like “cool” and “ironic.” Then there are your personal favorites, like “smug,” “arrogant,” and “insufferable.”

But the words you think are the most accurate are the ones that bother you the most. “Mysterious,” for one. Dave Strider is mysterious, something you’ve only come to understand in the time you’ve been his matesprit. He hides things. The longer you stick around, the more of those little gray spaces in the vividly annoying personality you know as Dave Strider you find. Places where he manages to slip around the details. Topics that are avoided continuously, not just when he thinks it’s funny to purposefully withhold the information. Questions he turns around in your face with a little more ironic force than normal.

With each day it gets harder to ignore. Dave Strider, your _matesprit,_ is hiding things from you, and you don’t know why.

#

If there’s one thing you and Dave agree on, it’s that John Egbert never should have ended up in a flushed quadrant with spiderbitch. In fact, it’s probably the only thing the two of you have ever agreed on.

Just _how?_ How does the biggest bitch in three universes end up with the biggest, sweetest derp? Dave joked once that it was because John was too much of a “not homosexual” and the two of you were too busy “getting your mack on” (Earth colloquial, or maybe just Dave colloquial, for engaging in sloppy make outs) and soothing each other’s figuratively bleeding, broken bloodpushers, wounded from mourning after a guy too clueless to even notice all the incredibly obvious hints the two of you dropped. Then in swept spiderbitch, stealing the unachievable prize with whatever fucking cheat codes she used that made her so much more appealing as a matesprit than either you or Dave.

But you both have to admit that spiderbitch has been significantly less bitchy since falling under Egbert’s constant influence. She is almost a tolerable person now. That’s probably generous. It’s more like she stopped being death by slow liquefaction in a cocoon-coffin and started being the suffocating death of a paralytic bite. The only bad habits John had (thus far) picked up in return were the irritating habit of throwing in exactly 8 characters for emphasis on Pesterchum and a newfound penchant for bending and twisting the rules to fit his Prankster’s impulses. He hasn’t quite reached Vriska’s level of ruthlessness in the pursuit of conquest, and fuck, you hope he never does.

You take comfort in the fact that at least John seems happy. Dave takes comfort in the irony that his girlfriend has an alien tenta-dick. You imagine that was a big fucking surprise to the both of them, actually, especially after seeing what Dave had between his legs. Human anatomy sure is weird, but you’ve got to admit that you’ve come to appreciate it. It’s not that horribly different, and even if Dave’s human dick can’t get inside you, his fingers can. That’s more than enough to satisfy you.

Speaking of…

“Hey, fuckass, you’re going to make us late.”

“You don’t sound too awful concerned about that, Vantas.”

It’s always hard to be concerned about anything other than Dave when you catch him in nothing but boxers. It’s such a rare occurrence that you haven’t had time to build up a tolerance. He usually has at least an undershirt on, and only that little when he’s absolutely certain nobody’s going to stop by unexpected.

There is absolutely no doubt in your mind that he is intentionally shirtless for your benefit. Or annoyance, as the case may be. You figure he’s just trying to irritate you by making the both of you late, but you’re finding it incredibly difficult to give a shit. Fuck John and his movie nights. There’s a shirtless Strider only a few short feet away.

“We should be leaving right now,” you growl.

Humans have some of the same vocal expressions as trolls. They sigh and snort and laugh and so on, but they don’t really growl. Not the way trolls do. You’re pretty sure they lack the necessary subvocal pipe mechanisms to make the clicking sounds a proper growl requires. But he knows just as well as you that the sound you’re making isn’t one of anger.

Just in case, you scratch the tips of your claws across his abdomen. At least, that’s why you tell yourself you’re doing it. It has absolutely nothing to do with how you’re drawn to them like his abs are one huge magnet designed to reel in your entire body, alright? In fact, that is not even a thing that is true. You are fully capable of resisting this pink human’s fleshy muscle mounds. You just don’t want to.

The muscles there have grown more and more defined with each passing year. He hasn’t stopped fighting just because the game ended. Every morning he slips out of bed long before you’re awake to run through his calisthenics. You used to insist on joining him, but it was made painfully clear painfully fast that you couldn’t keep up. You’ve long since given up trying. You should probably put more effort into it, especially if you want to bag yourself a kismesis one day, but the peace of this new universe is infecting. You’re more than satisfied with just admiring the results of Dave’s work.

“You want to speed this process up?”

You wrap and arm around his waist and flick your tongue over his bare shoulder instead of replying, tasting how warm and pink he is fresh from the ablution trap.

“That a yes or a no?”

You can hear the smirk in his voice.

He raises the end of the cloth bandage in his hand and brushes it against the tip of your nose until you take it away from him.

“Arms,” you order, and he obediently raises his arms out of the way.

This isn’t something Dave has trusted you with for very long. In fact, this is something that up until recently you weren’t allowed to talk about or even so much as look at. Before, if you let your hands or eyes linger for too long on the sarashi (which, as Dave once explained to you with the aid of a terrible documentary about Earth warriors called samurai who live on the Earth’s white moon-land and fight Technicolor creatures the size of buildings, is a form of light armor worn across the chest) was one of the single most effective ways you ever found to piss him off.

You guess you get it. With human skin being as thin as it is, you understand the increased need for armor. And it makes sense for a warrior like Dave to get uneasy when someone he didn’t yet trust completely started eyeing his defenses. Sure, trolls see armor as an admission of weakness, but you’re (slowly) learning to overcome your cultural biases.

Besides, there’s nothing weak about Dave Strider. Not a single fucking thing, and you will personally eviscerate anyone who says otherwise.

Unless that person happens to be Rose, because frankly she scares the shit out of you sometimes. Or Jade, for similar reasons. Or John, because even if you’ve given up your hate-crush on him almost completely now, you still probably couldn’t go through with it. You think you will forever be the Bec Noir to his Jade. Not quite hating him, not quite pitying him, but still stuck with these half-assed, unwanted feelings that are too much a part of you to ever go away.

Maybe it’s not completely red of you to admire your matesprit’s strengths instead of pitying his weaknesses, but you stopped questioning how the two of you fit into the quadrant system long ago. Sometimes he infuriates you, and you just wanted to beat the smirk off of his pretty pink face. Other times your bloodpusher would push fast and hard just at the thought of cuddling together on his futon. The two of you just called it a matespritship because it was the closest fit, and it stopped your friends from asking awkward questions. Besides, as the humans saw it, Dave really only had one quadrant to give and you were happy to claim it, kinks and all.

You pull the cloth as tight as you can. It cuts into Dave’s skin deep enough to make you wince, but if you don’t pull it this tight, he’ll just tell you to fuck off and let him do it properly. Sometimes you wonder why he still bothers with the sarashi, especially on the days when the red abrasions under either arm, the places where the cloth chaffs from how tight he wraps it, are a livid red. You hate the color red.

“Hold still,” you order, trying to force the cloth into the exact position he likes it.

“Ow, jegus, watch the claws, Kar-kitty. I’m a delicate flower.”

“It’s not fitting right.”

“Maybe because you’re not doing it right.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re getting bigger,” you snap back.

You’ve been trying to convince Dave to acknowledge his increased chest size for months, with increasingly poor results. This time, quick as a whip, Dave’s heel jerks back to kick you in the shin. Hard.

“Fuck!”

“You calling me fat, Vant-ass?”

“Fuck you right in your fucking face, you son of a bitch!”

You’re not sure of the exact meaning of that final phrase, but Dave’s use of it has convinced you it’s suitable to the situation.

You drop the end of the bandage to rub at your poor, abused shin.

“You trying to tell me something, baby? Because if so, I’m all ears.”

No, you’re fucking not, you think, but you’re smart enough not to say it.

Here lies Exhibit A, emphasis on the lying. You know there’s something off about all this. For starters, why does your matesprit seem to have an obsession with hurting himself? Why can’t he do something as simple as alchemize a longer bandage or just bind it looser? Why are you not fucking allowed to _talk about it?_ It’s infuriating, but there’s not a thing you can do about it.

And the worst part is, you kind of like the way he’s filling out. His shoulders are becoming broader, the muscles there more easy to trace under his thin, human skin. You can tell that (unless human development really is that different from a troll’s) Dave will probably always be thinner than you. Lithe, you guess you could say. You ended up with the square build of a slow but powerful fighter. Which, in your opinion, is kind of shitty because you’re nowhere near the most powerful fighter to come out of the game. You’re just slow. But Dave ended up build for speed, which makes sense. Or, at least it’s a lucky coincidence. You’re not sure who’s faster, him or Gamzee, but it’s a close race either way. John, on the other hand, ended up with a good dose of narrow, genetic height as well, but it just makes him gangly. You wonder if that’s what Dave wants. Any thinner and that’s what he’d be.

Your shin hasn’t even stopped throbbing by the time that Dave, fully dressed including shades, slams you into the wall. Before your mind can even catch up with your body’s new location, there are lips on your neck and blunt, human claws scratching their way down your sides.

“What the fuck?” you manage to spit out before Dave shuts you up by burying his teeth in your lower lip.

His hands drag from your sides down across your ass. He grabs both of your thighs and scratches and pulls until you give in and let him wrap your legs around his waist. His next target is your horns. He digs both hands into your hair, leaving you to support yourself. His mouth moves from your lips to your ear as he kneads the sensitive skin at the base of your horns. Pretty soon the only protests you’re capable of are the low, sensual buzzings that he says sound like grasshopper chirps thrown through one of his sound programs. Fucking Dave Strider.

“Bed?” he asks, sliding his hands down your back to get a decent grip on you. Or orders. Or warns. Sometimes it’s so fucking hard to tell with this guy.

You can’t think of a proper response, so you don’t bother answering. You’re pretty sure now is not the fucking time for this. In fact, you’re certain that there are at minimum a dozen good reasons why this shouldn’t be happening. The trouble is you can’t seem to remember any of them. So instead of complaining, you bury your face in his shoulder as you shift tighter around him. You work on leaving a mark on his shoulder. They’re always so much bigger and brighter on him than they are on you. Ridiculous fucking human skin. You love it so much.

Dave lifts you off the wall with ease, and, fuck, you love that too. You love every ounce of strength in those deceptively lithe limbs. You love the way he tosses you down on his bed and then climbs on top of you, eclipsing everything else in existence, to fucking _devour_ you.

He rips your pants down and doesn’t even bother with your shirt. Your bulge is already out. He smirks as he twines your bulge around his fingers, squeezing and tugging at it with the utmost delicacy and it’s still too much to handle.

“Fuck, fuck, _Dave!”_

“Mhm?”

He’s slowly coaxing your genetic material out of you, coating his fingers one by one. Fuck, you are practically dripping already. How does he do this to you? He pulls his hand away and licks some of it off his knuckles, all with that fucking smirk plastered on his face.

“You’re pretty easy today. It’s been, what, five seconds, and you’re already this wet?”

 Smug cool-douche. You want to drag his pants down and see just how fucking wet _he_ is, but the moment you go for his jeans he bats your hand away and puts an end to you doing just about anything other than moaning and writhing by slipping a finger deep into your nook.

“Damn, Vantas. I’ve got to say, this is a great look for you, spread wide with my fingers all up in your alien snatch, fucking you senseless.”

“Can’t wait to return the favor, jackass,” you snap back.

“What was that?”

Your nook is suddenly very empty. Shit.

“Stop playing around, cooldouche. Unless you’d like to explain to our favorite derp why we’re late, because I’m sure as fuck not doing it.”

“Run that by me one more time. I’m not quite sure I caught it. Did you just say ‘please, Dave, don’t fucking stop. Please fuck me. I need you inside me, Dave.’ Because I think that’s what you said, but hell, I guess all that time in front of the amps means my hearing’s not quite what it used to be.”

“Fuck you,” you snarl.

You lean up, going for his lips. You’re going to wipe that smug look off his face. And when he’s good and thoroughly distracted, you’re going to get those fucking jeans off his skinny ass and pail him ‘til he screams.

You’re barely even up on your elbows before his finger slips inside of you again. He thrusts it in and out lightening fast, hitting that one perfect spot inside you over and over until each touch blurs with the last. Then, just as fast, it’s gone again.

“Nah, I’m just not feeling up to it right now. I was thinking I’d just fuck you, since you’re obviously so desperate for it.”

Stupid fucking Strider thinks he can hide and play it cool just because his genetic material is clear and won’t seep through his pants. You know good and well he’s getting off on this just as much as you are (or close enough, anyway, seeing as he won’t fucking let you _touch him_ ), and he just doesn’t want to  let you prove it.

The moment you get your vocal cords back under control, you hiss out “Fuck your convenient human anatomy.”

“My what?”

He snickers as you’re rendered speechless for another several seconds as he works a second finger inside you. Fucking… Shit, _yeah._ You arch up against him as he teases you, slipping his fingertips in slow, uneven circles inside you.

“You think you’re so fucking cool just because you can sit there and not worry about your body giving you away.”

His fingers still and slide out of you a little bit.

“Yep,” he says, his face completely and utterly unreadable. And it’s only because of everything else going on that you see it as suspicious. “It sure is convenient.”

But you can’t think about it for too long, not when he’s still knuckle-deep inside you.

“Fuck, Dave, please just—”

“Just what?” he grins, rocking his hand slowly. “Come on, baby. You want it, ask for it.”

Of fucking course. Dave Strider’s favorite words.

You clasp your legs around his wrist so he can’t stop you, haul yourself up, and growl right in his needy, smug ear, “I want you inside of me _right fucking now._ ”

“Now those are the words I was waiting to hear.”

#

Egbert and spiderbitch are waiting for you at the top of the stairs when the two of you appear on the transportalizer.

“You guys are laaaaaaaate!”

“Shit, Vantas, we’ve just been double teamed.”

“God fucking damn it, why did we even come here?”

“I don’t know about you, man, but I’m here for the free booze. There is free booze, right Egbert?”

“Of course there is, Dave! We’re not that lousy of hosts.”

“Yeah, Dave, you should have a little more faith! I have taught John how to be an excellent host!”

You just fucking bet, you think, unable to stop imagining Vriska laying millions of eggs in John’s brain while he slept. You wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference for months, not until her wretched little offspring started eating the thinkpan cells that controlled his basic functioning. He would be her ultimate host.

“You going to let us in or are we going to hang out in your basement all night?” you snarl, putting a quick end to all these unpleasant pleasantries.

“Heheh, sorry guys! Come in! You can hang your coats and stuff on the hooks by the door,” John instructs, stepping back out of the way so you and Dave can enter their hive. “Don’t forget to take off your shoes.”

You look down and notice that John is wearing thick orange socks with black spiders decorating them. You sweep your eyes to the left and see that much to your immense disgust Vriska is wearing matching black socks with orange spiders.

“Do you like them?” John asks with a ridiculously huge grin on his face. “Rose made them for us! They match! Isn’t that just so awesome? I bet if you ask her nicely, she could make you and Dave a pair too! Probably not in time for Halloween, though. Apparently it takes her a really long time just to knit the sock even without adding the decorations. But she’ll still probably do it because she said she enjoys ‘having a practical excuse to engage in her hobby.’ Maybe you can ask her to make you some nice Christmas socks!”

“Jegus, the next thing you know the two of you will be wearing matching sweaters. John, what have I told you about running your ironic fashion choices by me before wearing them out into town?”

“This isn’t out into town, this is in the privacy of my own home! And they totally aren’t ironic, Dave. I am so sincere in my choice of footwear.”

“I think they’re pretty great, myself!” Vriska chimes in. “This was pretty considerate of Rose, actually! I’m amazed that she even bothered! I would have gotten soooooooo bored. You guys are all getting store-bought stuff for Christmas from me, so don’t go getting any high expectations!”

Your eyes meet hers and her huge, constant grin freezes for a second. Before you can even figure out what you want to feel when you look her in the eye, she’s back at full force, grabbing onto your arm and pulling you further into their hive.

“Come on, Kar-crab! Lighten uuuuuuuup! We’re here to have a party!”

“Don’t mind him. He can’t help it. His face is permanently stuck like that,” Dave, forever your fucking knight, says.

“I am so fucking glad I keep you around to come to my rescue,” you gripe, simultaneously flipping him off and shrugging Vriska away by taking off your jacket. “I can already tell I’m going to need at least three beers before I can even contemplate putting up with all of you assholes. Remind me again why I subject myself to these horrible visitations?”

“Because deep down you know you love us, Karkat!” John says, so self-assured with that ridiculously bright smile of his. “Now hurry up! Dinner’s getting cold!”

“Wait, there’s dinner? As in a proper, sit-down dinner? Please, Egbert, tell me you didn’t.”

“Well, Vriska and I have been really into cooking our own meals lately! We’ve been using recipes and everything! She’s really good at it! And we just figured, since we had the opportunity to cook for somebody besides ourselves and all, why not?”

“Alright, I’ve got to see this monstrosity with my own eyes. Care to lead the way, my lady?”

Dave offers his arm to Vriska.

“You bet, Dave! We’re going to show you! After the first bite, you’ll be begging for us to cook you meals every day! Come on, come oooooooon! This way, slow-pokes!”

Before you know it, you’re seated at John and Vriska’s (it’s still weird to think of them as the co-owners of anything, especially hive-y shit like this) dining room table. It’s far too big for just the four of you, but you assume it’s just one of the many ridiculous things all of you set about acquiring when you discovered you more or less had the means to have anything this world had to offer. Then you realize that there are exactly 16 chairs. Eight on each side, of course.

Fuck. Ever the optimist, isn’t he? He’s living with spiderbitch and he still has a table big enough for all sixteen of you. You’re not sure whether it’s admirable or just idiotic. Evidence points to idiotic.

Vriska and John order the two of you to sit still while they bring out the food. You recognize some of the dishes they bring out. The bread, for instance. That seems harmless enough. There’s also a salad in a bowl big enough to comfortably hold all four of your heads. But you have no idea what the dish seated in the middle of the table is supposed to be. It’s an odd creamy yellow-brown with some kind of crumble crust on the top.

“Holy shit, you guys went all out,” Dave comments. He sounds the good kind of surprised, which you take as a sign that the food looks and smells edible from a human perspective. You are always a little unsure when it comes to human food, ever since you ate that toy crafting dough Dave put in your thermal hull as an ingredient in your sandwich. To this day, he has yet to apologize, or even admit that he was at fault for being culturally insensitive. In fact, he still laughs every time either of you come across a jar of the accursed dough.

“We spare no expense for good friends!” John explains. “Well, that and we kind of wanted to show off. Try the bread. It is the most amazing thing ever, I am not even bragging.”

“You even made the bread? Shit, dude.”

“Come on, Karkat! You try some too! It is the most delicious of all the food offerings on the table!” Vriska urges, her smile a fangy mimicry of John’s.

She tosses a thick slice down on the plate in front of you without waiting for your permission while John gives Dave butter for his own slice.

For Egbert, you think. You will suffer through this for Egbert’s sake. You are not excepting food offerings from spiderbitch, you are accepting them from Egbert.

You follow Dave’s example and coat your slice of bread with butter. You try to spread it as evenly as possible, buying for time.

“Wow.”

“Do you like it?”

“I’m pretty sure I want to marry it. Damn, Egbert, if the rest of the food is this good I may actually move in just to experience the miracle every day, three times a day.”

“Yeeeeeeees!”

“Haha, well, to be honest, we’re kind of leading with our best here. Not that the rest of the food is bad, or anything. We wouldn’t do that to friends. But the bread’s just really, really good, isn’t it?”

“Slide another slice my way and I’ll give you an answer.”

“Take all you want! There’s no need for bribery! We’ve actually got a whole other loaf in the oven. We figured that even if you two didn’t eat it, we would.”

You watch as John pulls out Vriska’s chair for her before sitting down himself. Dave did that for you once, but you’re pretty sure it was only because he was being ironic.

You finally cave in and take a tentative bite of the bread. You try not to be too surprised when it lives up to its reputation, but it’s hard when you want nothing more from life at this moment then to eat your weight in this bread and die the happiest troll ever to exist.

“Do you like it, Karkat? Hurry up! Finish chewing and tell me just how amazing it is!”

“Don’t rush him, Vriska. It’s not a race. He’ll tell us how completely amazed he is at our awesome bread-cooking skills when he’s ready,” John says.

When he turns his ridiculous smile to Vriska, it somehow becomes even more ridiculous. It becomes something you’ve never seen before. Something just for her, you realize.

“Actually, it’s not all that hard to make,” John continues, fixing himself a slice of the bread. “I can give you the recipe. It just takes a while to make because you have to let the dough rise for a couple of days.”

“Don’t tell them that! Aw, John, we had them impressed! They would have been putty in our fingers for the rest of the night! We could have made them wash dishes!”

“Don’t get your hopes up, sweetheart. Dave Strider does not wash dishes.”

“Does that mean you make Karkat do all the dishes at your place?”

“He doesn’t just do dishes, he does all the housework. I’ve got him well-trained.”

“I am not fucking… It’s only because he’s completely useless! He thinks that the only time you need to clean the ablution chamber is when you can see the mold actively growing on the walls! I’m not even sure he knows how to operate a vacuum.”

“Grooooooooss, Dave!”

“You should have seen his bedroom back on Earth. I only saw screencaps, but Jade went in there once. She said the smell was so bad it made her eyes water!”

“I can’t help that her delicate lady sensibilities couldn’t handle so much concentrated Strider swag.”

“That’s one word for it,” you say with a snort, well able to imagine the disgusting horror Jade experienced. You went to his old hive, where he lived before the two of you moved in together, once and only once. After that, you made him come to you. He could con you into a lot of things with the promise of mack outs, or whatever the appropriately ironic human term was, but venturing into that pit twice was not one of them.

“So, you do all the cleaning, Karkat? Man, that must be such a pain! If John tried to turn me into one of those puny human housewives, I’d kill him!”

Your eyes meet hers again in another one of those awkward silences you experienced at the doorway. Now you know exactly what you feel, and its anger. Maybe it was a joke. Maybe it wasn’t. The part that bothers you is how easily you can imagine her words going from exaggeration to action.

“Lighten uuuuuuuup, Kar-crab! That was a joke! My days of using violence to solve my problems are over! I swear on my most precious treasure!”

She makes eight googly-eyes at John, who giggles back. You think they’re holding hands under the table like 3-sweep-olds.

“I am not a fucking housewife,” you snarl, ignoring her last comment because what else can you do? “I just don’t enjoy living in filth.”

“Shit, no. Lady, do you see a ring on this finger? He’s a live-in maid at best.”

Egbert bursts out in a fit of laughter.

“Oh man! I can totally imagine that! Karkat in a maid costume, making grumpy faces as he swears at dust bunnies!”

“Bending over to pick up piles of my dirty laundry, wearing red thigh-highs and something lacy underneath,” your matesprit adds wistfully.

Dave shoots you one of his infuriating smirks. You aim a kick at his legs, but the nooksniffer manages to dodge it. Of fucking course.

“Ew! Dave, I did not need that mental image!”

“Stop playing footsie under the table, you guys! You’re going to wreck our carefully prepared meal!”

You take aim and lash out a second kick, but all you accomplish is giving Dave the opportunity to trap your foot in a vice-grip. He gives you a smug grin and pats your knee condescendingly.

“I just want you to know, I hate each and every one of you with the intensity of a thousand green suns. Jack was a better friend than any of you. You know, before the humans fucked everything up and turned him into a murderous fuckass.”

“As opposed to a stab-happy fuckass?” Dave comments.

“Fuck you. Fuck all of you.”

“Aw, Karkat, you know we love you too.”

“Let’s eat, already! I’m staaaaaaaarving!”

“OK. How about you serve the salad, Vriska?”

She jumps up, eager to show off.

“Egbert, what are those?”

You eye Dave’s bowl, trying to figure out what he’s talking about until Vriska fills your own bowl.

“Are there grubs in this salad?”

You spear one of the little blue crescents with your fork and hold it up to get a better look.

“Yep! Surprised, aren’t you? Bet you would never think of putting grubs in a salad!” Vriska answers with obvious pride for her creation.

“They’re actually really good!” John adds, trying to convince Dave, who’s still eyeing the grubs skeptically. He’s never been much one for troll food. Or native food. Most everything he eats is alchemized. “They’re kind of like shrimp, but with a gooey center!”

“If you’re too scared to try them, I’m going to take them,” you warn him, popping the speared grub in your mouth.

He parries your fork with his own when you go for his bowl.

“Guuuuuuuuys! You’re using the wrong forks! The salad fork is the other one!”

“There’s actually a salad fork? Jegus, Egbert, when did you get so old?”

“You know how it is. Time passes, mister Knight of Time!”

“Yeah,” your matesprit replies with a half-smile. “It sure does.”

#

By some stroke of terrible luck (which you kindly attribute to your gracious hostess), you and Dave somehow end up washing dishes.

“I thought Striders didn’t do dishes,” you remind him as he hands you the first platter. “Huh. Would you look at that? This actually looks half-way clean. Color me surprised.”

“Did you seriously believe that I couldn’t do something as simple as wash a plate? Come on, Vantas, I know you’re smarter than that. Just because I’ve lived in a sacred man-cave all my life doesn’t mean Bro failed to teach me such vital survival skills. We could get that shit pristine. When we felt like it, anyway.”

“I have no idea what the sounds spewing out from your seed flap are supposed to mean.”

“I mean that I did a lot of dish-washing as a little coolkid. And toilet-scrubbing, and laundry, and mopping. By the way, I totally used this huge, metal pail for mopping the floors. You’d love it.”

“So, basically, you’re saying there’s no reason why you shouldn’t wash our dishes tomorrow.”

“But why would I ever bother when I have the world’s most adorable live-in maid? I certainly wouldn’t want to make you feel like you had to earn your keep in _other_ ways.”

Whatever human custom he’s referring to, you are certain that it is suitably lewd and resolve to be irritated just on principle.

“Adorabloodthirsty,” you correct him, pulling the next clean dish out of his hand.

“Fuck, I am so getting you a sexy maid outfit with red stockings. I can see it already. You will be so fucking adorabloodthirsty, baby.”

You’re about to tell Dave exactly where he can shove his newfound maid fetish when you hear footsteps approaching.

“Hey, we’re almost finished setting up the pillow fort! You guys need to hurry up! We’re getting impatient!” John calls as he enters the kitchen. “Oh, and what kind of snacks do you want? We’ve got that ultimate butter movie popcorn and… OK, I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I know it’s some kind of grubcorn, but I can’t read Alternian.”

“What are you going on about?” you ask, leaving Dave alone at the sink to go see what John has in his hand. As the only troll in the room, it’s your official duty. And also Dave Strider can learn to wash his own fucking dishes.

Sure enough, there in John’s hand is a box of your favorite brand of multicolored grubcorn.

“How did you know?” you ask, staring at the box, dumbstruck.

You haven’t eaten this brand of grubcorn since you were a nameless 5-sweep-old watching romcoms in your hive with only your lusus and the occasional friendly trolling to keep you company. You didn’t even think this universe had this kind of grubcorn.

“It was Vriska’s idea. She heard from a mutual friend that you liked it, so…”

“Hey Vantas, you just going to abandon me?”

“I thought Striders didn’t ask for help,” you argue, rattling off another one of his irritating maxims.

“Some matesprit you are, asshole.”

You roll your eyes, ready to give in and help him finish, when John steps in.

“Hey Dave, why don’t you just leave those for later? Vriska could use your help with the pillow fort. She’s got a bad habit of making it a risky pillow fort instead of a normal pillow fort. She likes the adventure, which is cool when it’s just the two of us, but I’m not sure you guys would appreciate the experience.”

“The hell is a risky pillow fort?”

“If you don’t stop her, you’ll find out for yourself!”

“You sure, man? I may bitch, but I really don’t mind finishing up here. Won’t take me that long.”

“Nah, it’s cool! You’re guests! Go have fun!”

Dave obligingly throws in the towel and heads into the living room. You go to join him, figuring “guests” plural means you’re free to leave too, but you don’t make it two steps before John grabs your arm.

“Not you!”

“What, you need me to help you read the instructions? It’s basically the same as your human popcorn. I’m sure even someone of your limited intelligence can handle it. Then again,” you reconsider, “it’d be a shame if you managed to burn the first proper bowl of grubcorn I’ve seen in sweeps. Maybe I’d better stay and make sure you don’t fuck it up.”

“Yeah, hehe…”

John isn’t looking at you. You’re pretty sure he’s not even listening to you. He’s just staring over the top of your head intensely, like maybe he’s…

“Ow! What the fuck, Egbert?”

…waiting for an opportunity.

“Keep your voice down!” John orders, whapping you across the head with the package of grubcorn again.

First your matesprit, now John. Why does everyone you know think of you as their personal punching bag? What did past you do to deserve this?

“Stop being such an asshole to Vriska!”

“What?”

“You heard me! I want you to stop being mean to her right now, Karkat!”

“When was I ever mean to her? I have not treated her any differently than she deserves.”

“You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about! You are such! An! Asshole!” he shouts, beating you over the head with each word. “You don’t even notice how hard she’s trying!”

“Give me that,” you say, wrestling the package away from him. That last blow caught you squarely at the base of your horn, an action you’re not going to give him the opportunity to repeat. “Oh, she’s trying, is she? Trying to what, lure all of us into a false sense of security before she stabs all of us in the back? No thanks. Been there, done that, got the ceremonial scarrings.”

“She’s changed, Karkat, even if your head’s too far up your ass to notice.”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe she has changed, changed from a psycho-murdering bitch to a slightly less psychotic, _potentially_ murderous bitch.”

“Just give her a second chance!”

“You know who gave her a second chance? Tavros. Look how fucking great that turned out for him. You can’t have compassion with trolls like her, John.”

“Get out of my house.”

“What?”

 “This is my house, and I’m not going to sit by for one more minute and watch you hurt the woman I love. I am done putting up with your shit, Karkat Vantas. So you need to make a choice, right here and now. Get over your grudge and treat her like a human being, or troll, or what the fuck ever will get the point across to you! Get over it or _get the fuck out of my house.”_

It takes you by surprise. You can’t believe it, but John looks like he actually means it. He’s in your face and absolutely, lividly, beautifully _furious._

“…OK,” you stutter out. “OK, John. I get it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re right. I… I guess I just, uh…” _Never wanted to acknowledge that you and her were actually a thing. Because even though I’ve come to terms with losing you, I’ve never wanted to face up to the fact, the **fact** , _you realize maybe for the first time, _that somebody else could do what I never could and find the heart of John Egbert behind those big, blue eyes._ “You called it. I had my head up my ass. I’ll stop.”

“Good,” he smiles, relieved. “OK, yeah, that’s good. I can’t tell her how much this will mean to her, seeing that somebody has faith in her besides me.”

“I don’t have faith in her,” you correct him. “I just have faith in you.”

That kills his smile, but only for a second.

“I guess that’s all I can ask, huh? The rest is up to her to earn.”

“You really think she can do it?”

And then, like magic, that smile is back, the one you only ever see when he’s looking at her.

“I know she can.”


End file.
